1. The Dirt (Est. 1981)
2. Red Hot
3. On with the Show
4. Live Wire
5. Merry-Go-Round
6. Take Me to the Top
7. Piece of Your Action
8. Shout at the Devil
9. Looks That Kill
10. Too Young to Fall in Love
11. Home Sweet Home
12. Girls, Girls, Girls
13. Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)
14. Kickstart My Heart
15. Dr. Feelgood
16. Ride with the Devil
17. Crash and Burn
18. Like a Virgin

Serving as a companion to the Motley Crue Netflix biopic of the same name, The Dirt is less about being a “best of” career retrospective and more about representing the band’s hedonistic glory days. Of course, you could argue that the majority of Motley’s best work came from those days and they certainly sold the most records then, but the lack of “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” alone makes me believe they weren’t really thinking “greatest hits” or “best of” when choosing tracks for this compilation. I’ll assume most, if not all, of these tracks appear in the movie as I haven’t seen it yet.

It’s the four new tracks that I am interested in, otherwise this would be another compilation I’d ignore.

“The Dirt (Est. 1981)” is a fairly average and forgettable song that sounds like something that was left on the cutting room floor during the Saints of Los Angeles sessions. There’s even a misguided appearance from rapper Machine Gun Kelly that I guess was too good to pass up since Kelly was cast as Tommy Lee in the movie. Seriously wtf… your audience is middle-aged men who want to relive their youth, not twenty-somethings who listen to rap.

A slight improvement is “Ride With the Devil”. A bit of a Sixx:A.M. vibe here.

“Crash and Burn” is easily the best song of the new tracks, and has that modern Crue sound that fits in with “Sick Love Song”, Saints of Los Angeles, and 2012’s “Sex” & 2015’s “All Bad Things” singles. I actually like this song a lot. It’s interesting that for a movie based on a book that reveled so much in the band’s 80s heyday that the band didn’t even try to recapture that sound on the new releases.

Well, here we are. The fourth new track. “Like a Virgin” is indeed a cover of the Madonna song. Fairly pointless. These new songs may be the last we ever hear from Motley Crue so I would’ve preferred another original track rather than a cover of an ’80s pop song. And I’m not one of those Vince Neil haters (I recognize he’s always had limitations as a singer and I think he’s always sounded fine at the concerts I’ve been to), but this song is a not a good fit for him. He seems to be struggling here.

Given that this soundtrack is meant to represent the band’s life from 1981’s Too Fast for Love to 1989’s Dr. Feelgood only, I think album does a fine job showing that. The new tracks “Ride With the Devil” and “Crash and Burn” are good listens, but anyone who hasn’t enjoyed Motley post-Dr. Feelgood probably won’t enjoy them because they aren’t trying to fit in stylistically with the band’s ’80s material.

While I’ve never truly believed Motley Crue’s “final” tour is really the final tour (comments from band members have now stated they’ll still occasionally record or do live performances), I was hoping a new tour might bring about some new music. It’s been too long since the band released a follow-up album to Saints of Los Angeles. I think the idea for any future new Motley music is so to either attach the songs to soundtracks, EPs or release them as singles, but it’s been announced that some type of Motley Crue release is in the works that will include the band’s latest single and the one new track they are playing on their farewell tour, “All Bad Things”.

Whatever the project is, it’s being called “the ultimate collector’s album package” (by Motley’s press release). I’m guessing either another greatest hits collection or another box set. I’d rather get a whole new album.

To the music at hand, when snippets of this song first appeared online in the form of a teaser for the tour, I liked what I heard. Live recordings popping up on YouTube weren’t that great so I’ve been impatiently waiting for MONTHS for a proper release of this song.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the new music Motley Crue has made since 2005. It’s the perfect marriage of the Motley Crue sound and modern hard rock. I loved the few new tracks they did for Red, White & Crue, Saints of Los Angeles was good and I liked the band’s previous single, “Sex”. If you’re a fan of their newer stuff, you’ll like “All Bad Things”. It sounds like something that could’ve been on SOLA and it’s a step up from “Sex”. I would love to see both of those songs get a proper physical release so I’m hoping whatever album is in the pipeline, both of these songs will appear on it.

Bought this album for three reasons: “If I Die Tomorrow”, “Sick Love Song” and “Street Fighting Man”. Before anyone thinks I’m stupid for spending $15-20 for 3 songs, I actually picked up a used copy off Amazon.com for about $2.25.

Red, White & Crue is the band’s fourth compilation and came hot on the heels of the reunion of all four original members. This time it was Tommy Lee returning after having had some minor success with his rap-metal group Methods of Mayhem and two solo albums. The late Randy Castillo (ex-Ozzy) was Tommy’s replacement in the band and later when Randy became ill, Hole drummer Samantha Maloney would join the group in a touring capacity.

For my money (as little as I paid!), this album stands as the superior Crue compilation. Of the 5 compilations the band has released, this is the only collection to feature two discs (although a single disc version was released) and therefore it’s able to cover a lot more ground. It certainly makes 1998’s Greatest Hits album obsolete as it includes the two new tracks that came from that album. Quality begins to take a dip with Disc 2 as the collection is set up in chronological order and we’re taken through the Corabi album, Generation Swine and New Tattoo songs.

The album ends on a high note with three new tracks. “If I Die Tomorrow” and “Sick Love Song” are classic Crue songs in my opinion and were foreshadowing what would come later on Saints of Los Angeles. Great mix of modern hard rock and the classic Crue sound and two of my favorite Crue songs ever and in my area they both got some decent airplay. The final new track is “Street Fighting Man”, a cover of the Rolling Stones song (and Josh Freese actually plays drums on this song). A good effort though I’m not a big Stones fan. A fourth new track called “I’m a Liar (And That’s the Truth)” made it onto Japan pressings of this album. I checked the song out on YouTube and while it would’ve been nice to see it included, it’s the least pleasing of the newly recorded songs. Kinda generic.

For old school fans, there is the previously unreleased “Black Widow” (You mean there are MORE songs that didn’t make it as bonus tracks to those reissues ) which was demoed in 1983 for Shout at the Devil but morphed into “God Bless the Children of the Beast”.

Listen, anytime a band releases a “best of” or “greatest hits” compilation, the debate can rage on endlessly about which songs didn’t deserve to be on the album and which songs did. Sure, we can all sit back and pick this album apart and list what we’d take out and put in but I think this is a great career overview, warts and all. They didn’t focus only on songs from the original four members, they didn’t try to pretend Corabi didn’t exist or that they didn’t go that weird alternative/techno route with Generation Swine and I think that’s cool. For better or worse, this album shows you all eras of Motley Crue… which is what a compilation should do, in my opinion, unless you’re calling it a greatest hits album.

This is the compilation I would recommend to anyone looking to get into the band. More than likely, the most amount of enjoyment is going to be found on Disc 1 as every song there is classic old school Crue but Disc 2 still has a few gems to offer.

I’m really surprised by how many albums I enjoyed this year. I have a pitiful memory so I had to go back through my blog to remind myself what came out this year but I was floored when my Top 10 list was changed to a Top 20 list, then to a Top 30 list! I knocked it back down to a Top 25 list to make it seem a tiny bit more exclusive.

If you haven’t checked out any of these 25 albums, I wholeheartedly recommend you do so. 2010 was an amazing year for rock & metal, much MUCH better than 2009. I don’t see how 2011 can compete!

I’ll keep it short and sweet with my awards. As always, check the links for full reviews.

Seems like every year a few established artists like to cover a few *other* established artists, not to mention all those various tribute albums that small labels will slap together. Well, here’s my official ranking of the three cover albums I bothered to listen to this year. Luckily, all three albums were good fun and I think they all deserve another mention.

1. Ratt – Infestation
The album was good, don’t get me wrong. It landed at #25 on my Best Of list for Dio’s sake! But… most of the songs had trouble living up to the promise of “Eat Me Up Alive” and “Best Of Me”.

2. Armored Saint – La Raza
A bland album from a band that has done so much better. They seemed to be going through the motions (to which John Bush has basically admitted in regards to himself). Symbol of Salvation this ain’t.

3. White Wizzard – Over The Top
The High Speed GTO EP garnered this group a lot of hype and buzz. We all fell for it, I know reviews for this album have been positive and it’s not bad but I expected more. Hopefully a second album will get these guys where they need to be.

4. Raven – Walk Through Fire
The terrible cover art should’ve tipped me off that this album was nothing special.

When I first heard about this album, I wasn’t all that excited about it but I figured I would probably pick it up just because I’m such a big Crue fan. Then I found out this album was mostly a collection of cover songs with only two original songs. I decided against picking it up but I read a few positive reviews for it and noticed Best Buy’s website had the album on sale for $7.99 with free shipping. I ended up ordering this along with Ozzy’s Scream album (it had the same deal). Both albums arrived in the mail on Monday, 6/21 — a full day before they hit the street! BestBuy.com is quickly becoming one of the top stopping places for me when it comes to new music from established acts.

Vince Neil sounds as good as ever (no jokes, please) and he’s backed by a number of notable musicians. Night Ranger’s Brad Gillis & Jack Blades lend a hand with Jack Blades going as far as producing all of the cover songs. Then there’s Beautiful Creatures’ Anthony Focx making a guest appearance. Slaughter’s Dana Strum and Jeff Blando help make up the Vince Neil band in 2010 alongside newcomer Zoltan Chaney on drums. Marti Frederiksen (who co-wrote the entire Saints of Los Angeles album from Motley Crue) plays a few instruments and also produced/wrote the two new tracks.

I think the song choices here were great. Vince said he wanted to cover bands he was a fan of and that had influenced him and that’s great. He’s lent his voice to so many low-budget tribute albums over the years, it’s nice to know he’s not just collecting a paycheck this time. It’s also cool this was released on Eleven Seven (where Nikki Sixx is a head honcho at the label) and Vince didn’t have to put this out on a no-name label.

These covers are inspired. They’ve all been given a slight makeover and a sleazy hard rock edge. Some of his cover choices are surprising, here’s the full list: Cheap Trick, Sweet, Aerosmith, Sex Pistols, The Hollies, Scorpions, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elvis Presley and Elton John. I’m particularly impressed by the versions of The Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman” and CCR’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain”. Vince sound really good singing these old ’70s hard rockers. His take on Aerosmith’s “Nobody’s Fault” and Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas” are pretty rockin’ too. I was particularly interested in how “Viva Las Vegas” would sound and I’m glad it was given a hard rock makeover and he didn’t try to remain true to the song’s lounge act roots. Even the two new songs “Tattoos & Tequila” and “Another Bad Day” (which are obvious attempts at getting modern rock radio play) are growing on me.

Vince really sounds like he was having fun with these songs and why not? Like Def Leppard’s Yeah! covers album, this is a good time rock ‘n’ roll album for the summer and it was recorded for no other purpose than having fun. Fun seems to be the Vince Neil way. Though he has somewhat of a scroungy biker image when hanging out in Motley Crue, his solo style appears to be that of a hard rock Jimmy Buffett and he even has an ad in the CD booklet for his own line of tequila! Look out, Sammy Hagar!

By 1993, Vince Neil was already out of Motley Crue and had snagged himself a solo record deal with Warner Bros. The album is very much like what you would hope a Vince Neil-led Motley album would sound like, as opposed to 1994’s alternative rock lovefest that was Motley Crue.

If I didn’t know it was a solo disc, I would swear this was Motley. The albums is oozing with their typical sleazy sex-driven lyrics and dirty glam sound. Quite a rarity for 1993, though the album at least initially did well debuting at #13 on the Billboard charts. The quality and sound of the album cannot be attributed only to Neil though. He often played a small role in the creative process with Motley and on this album he aided in songwriting by the likes of Steve Stevens, Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw.

I’m not a big fan of the Blades/Shaw-penned “Can’t Change Me”. Reminds me too much of Motley’s “Time for a Change”, which I also didn’t like, but if you’re in the mood for Motley and don’t wanna spin Motley Crue, try this one instead. A surprisingly strong debut.

Rhythm guitarist Dave Marshall and future Ratt bassist Robbie Crane were featured in the album’s insert and were a part of the band on the preceding tour, but did not actually join until the album was already recorded.

This isn’t one concert, it’s a cut & paste job of performances taken from the 80s and late 90s. Having actually seen Motley played live TWICE now, I can say this album does them no justice at all. I used to enjoy it when it was first released, but it just can’t compare to their live show.

There’s no doubt that all live albums get a little “touch up” in the studio, but I think Vince’s voice in concert today sounds better than some of his parts on here. Good song selection though, there’s a strong presence of early material and “Ten Seconds to Love” is a great live cut.